Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav played a starring role to help Mumbai Indians chase down 215 in a six-wicket IPL win over Punjab Kings on Wednesday.
Tim David and Tilak Varma got the team across the finish line with seven balls to spare in the day’s second match in Mohali, after Kishan (75) and Suryakumar (66) had put on a crucial third-wicket partnership of 116.
Varma hit the winning six in his 10-ball 26 and his unbeaten stand of 38 included David, who was the star in his team’s previous match, who made 19.
“When we started T20 format, 140-150 was a winning score. But look at this one,” Mumbai skipper Rohit Sharma said.
“Plus one extra batter makes a huge difference as well. Not just to us but across the IPL. I just checked that the average score this IPL is 180.”
Mumbai’s chances of making the playoffs improved thanks to this batting performance, which even outdid Liam Livingstone’s unbeaten 82 for Punjab.
Mumbai has replaced Punjab at sixth place in the league’s 10-team standings, with the champions, the Gujarat Titans, in first.
In the first over of Mumbai’s chase, Rohit was out for a duck, and in the second over, impact sub Nathan Ellis sent back fellow Australian Cameron Green for 23.
The match was turned around by a barrage of fours and sixes from left-hander Kishan, who was named man of the match, and right-hander Suryakumar, who has recently hit form after a poor start to the season.
Suryakumar hit two sixes and two fours off the expensive English import from Punjab, Sam Curran, on his way to his second fifty in as many games.
Suryakumar’s stay was cut short by Arshdeep Singh, who took a diving catch at short third-man off Ellis before sending back Kishan with his left-arm pace bowling and conceding 66 runs.
Varma and David’s efforts ensured the IPL juggernaut of five titles would win for the second year in a row.
“We should have bowled tighter lines,” Punjab skipper Shikhar Dhawan said.
“Because we saw the wicket and saw it’s a very good wicket, we thought change of pace will work a lot and I feel Nathan bowled really well but other bowlers didn’t step up today.”
Livingstone and Jitesh Sharma (49) put on an unbeaten 119 to help Punjab reach 214-3.
During his 42-ball knock, Livingstone dispatched the bowlers to all parts of the ground, with three sixes off of England teammate Jofra Archer, a pace bowler for Mumbai.
After the game, Livingstone said he had lunch with Archer to discuss the upcoming game and how they could best prepare for the challenge.
Archer posted his worst IPL stats (0-56) for the highest price.
Rain forced the cancellation of the day’s opening match in Lucknow, India, between the Lucknow Super Giants and the Chennai Super Kings.
After an hour and forty minutes of waiting for rain to end play, the officials decided that the teams would split the points because Lucknow had reached 125-7 in 19.2 overs.
